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| Students of the faculty of fine arts of Rajshahi University on November 12 organised an exhibition titled ‘Inktober 2018, Rajshahi’ on Inktober drawings at their campus. |
Inktober:
ink up your October
Jake Parker started ‘Inktober’ in 2009 and it soon went viral in the like-minded artist’s arena. This project inspires artists to create 31 individual artworks on each day of the month of October thus a portfolio at the end of the month. Recently, this initiative gained popularity in Bangladesh. Young artists from three universities organised public displays in respective institutes of the artworks of Inktober 2018. Nazir Uz Zaman writes about the initiative.
ON EVERY
October, artists from all over the world take the ‘Inktober’ (Ink + October)
drawing challenge by doing one ink drawing on each day of the entire month – 31
days, 31 drawings. Jake Parker, an illustrator, animator and concept artist
started a personal project to improve his inking skills which has now become a
global phenomenon known as Inktober. This creative wave hits Bangladesh as well
over the period of time. Remarkable numbers of professional and amateur
Bangladeshi artists have been taking this online challenge which is a way to
gain the regular habit of drawing and a way to improve drawing skills over the
time. Though the challenge is about online platforms but Bangladeshi artists
widen the idea and have started offline exhibitions of the artworks, created
for the challenge.
Faculty
of fine arts’ young students and artists of different universities organised
exhibitions at their respective campuses on the Inktober drawings. Students of
faculty of fine arts, University of Dhaka organised an exhibition titled
‘Inktober Showdown Charukola 2018’ on 1st, 4th and 5th November. On November 4,
students from the same department of the University of Chittagong organised another
exhibition on Inktober drawings titled ‘#Inktober Exhibition 2018, Chittagong’.
Moreover, the students of faculty of fine arts, University of Rajshahi
organised an exhibition titled ‘Inktober 2018, Rajshahi’ on November 12.
The
official general rules to take part in Inktober are just to pick up a
pen/pencil, to start drawing, and to upload the artwork on social media on
daily basis with the hashtag ‘#inktober’ and ‘#inktober2018’ and repeating the
same or continuing it throughout the entire month of October. Every year the
official site of Inktober provides a prompt list but it is also remarkable that
artists can enjoy the full freedom to come up with their own ideas to express
their feelings and thoughts through their artworks and the central notion of
the challenge is to maintain regularity.
Prosun
Halder, one of the organisers and participants of ‘Inktober Showdown Charukola
2018’, shares the story with New Age Youth of this exhibition and says that
maintaining the regularity or continuity helps an artist to develop the one’s
skills. Also, 31 days is not a short time and if the artist seriously uses this
occasion and continues the drawing work, it is very much possible to create a
portfolio of the artworks which could be placed for a solo exhibition and could
be a layout for the one’s further works. Prosun continues by saying that
exhibitions like this one, expand the opportunities for an artist to be
successful. After this exhibition, many participating artists are offered to
publish photo books with the artworks and many artists are offered new works.
This is an enormous achievement for a young artist to get such offers for this
simple exhibition. Such exhibition creates a platform for young creative
artists to come up with their works thus the fields of communication among
artists and well-wishers are increasing.
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| Inktober Showdown Charukola 2018 |
The question comes obvious that what thoughts lead the organisers to arrange the exhibition as Inktober has originally been an online challenge. Addressing this, Proshun says that though it is for skill development but what is about after developing one’s skill? Exhibition is a way to bring together all the creative works to display and it can be held in an open space, with these thoughts, organisers try to gather the artworks with only one rule that each participant have to submit 31 artworks. They successfully gather a total of 744 artworks from 24 artists with different themes like landscapes, characters of religious myths, fiction characters, and popular personalities and so on.
Organisers
of ‘#Inktober Exhibition 2018, Chittagong’ successfully gather about three
hundreds artworks of 25 artists with different themes like lines and boxes,
tranquility, drooling, depression, hope, portrait and many more, says Sajib
Kumar Dey, one of the organisers and participants of the exhibition while
sharing the story with New Age Youth about the initiative. Rahul continues by
saying that an artist works each day throughout the month to participate in
Inktober and uploads it each day on social media as an online version. The
appeals of an artwork as soft copy or online version and hard copy are
remarkably different. Exhibition of the artworks make it possible to increase
the appeals of the audiences and also creates a platform for the direct
interaction among artists, artworks and the audiences. It is the first
exhibition in Chattogram on Inktober artworks and the organisers try to create
an open platform for the artists including them who are not the students of
University of Chittagong but enthusiastic enough to display their artworks.
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| Hirak Raja, an artwork displayed in the ‘Inktober Showdown Charukola 2018’ at the faculty of fine arts of University of Dhaka. – Tariqul Islam Herok |
For ‘Inktober 2018, Rajshahi’, with the same objective to encourage young artists, organisers attempt to create an open platform where any artists can get chance to display their artworks and successfully ensure the participation of artists from off-campus, says Supti Ghose Trisha, one of the organisers and participants of the exhibition. Supti continues by saying that as it is the first exhibition on Inktober in Rajshahi and as the Inktober challenge is a comparatively new on- growing initiative, there are less participants but it is a matter of hope that the creative wave is spreading. Abdullah Al Mahin, another organiser and participant, says that the exhibition consists of about 180 artworks from 12 artists with different themes like skeleton, line drawing, Durga Puja, characters of Mahabharata, portrait and so on which will inspire the upcoming young artists for creative drawings and cheer up them for participating in exhibitions. Another organiser and participant Rahul Debnath says that platforms for artworks and exhibitions are very much limited in Rajshahi and one of the notions of the organisers is to create the platform.
Though the initiative of Inktober and the exhibition on its artwork are very new for most of the young artists of Bangladesh but the organisers and participants have positive hope for its future. The participation and responses increased remarkably than the last time and the artists including the well-wishers believe that the creative wave will continue.
Nasir Uz Zaman is a member of the New Age Youth
team
Published: Nov 18, 2018 (New Age Youth)
Links:
http://www.newagebd.net/article/56317/inktober-ink-up-your-october
http://epaper.newagebd.net/18-11-2018/24
